


Call Me Crazy

by mousapelli



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Established Relationship, Language Barrier, M/M, Pet Names
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-01 20:06:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17250548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mousapelli/pseuds/mousapelli
Summary: Victor's pet names have always been terrible, but they're a lot worse now that Yuuri is starting to understand what Victor's been calling him all this time.





	Call Me Crazy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [booksong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/booksong/gifts).



> Written for 2018 SportsFest, Bonus Round 3. Prompt was "most likely to have petnames for each other."
> 
> It was super tough to choose between victuuri and yurabeka here because Otabek also comes from a culture well-versed in ridiculous petnames. "My camel" is one of my favorites. Anyway all the Russian ones here are real, and my gingerbread is seriously my favorite.

Victor has always called Yuuri pet names, from the moment he came to Hasetsu. Yuuri was flustered by it at first, but eventually realized that it was just a Russian thing when Yuri arrived and Victor would call him "Yurachka" even in the middle of a fight. When he and Victor got a bit more…er, romantic…the pet names increased in both frequency and incomprehensibility. Being called "Yuura" or "katsudon" was one thing, but Yuuri possessed about as much Russian as Victor possessed Japanese (around -5%) and even Victor's English was puzzling at best sometimes between their accents and the fact that Victor had a tendency to be either yelling words across a crowded street or mumbling them right against Yuuri's skin.

"Seriously, what are you calling me?" Yuuri finally asked near the end of fall, both of them wrapped up tight in Victor's blankets to try and save some of the heat from the hot spring before the heater started doing its job.

"Oh, you know," Victor said, vague. "Sweet things." Yuuri poked him in the ribs. "Eek! Like sugar…animals. In Russian we like animals. You are my little fish, my baby cat. Ah, kitten."

"We have that one too," Yuuri chuckled. "For men, it's a little…uh…"

"Teach me it," Victor demanded, and that's the way it always ended up with Yuuri getting distracted teaching Victor all the Japanese words for strange things. Sometimes they stuck and sometimes they didn't, and sometimes Victor only remembered the embarrassing ones, like at the grocery store with his mother when Victor overheard her saying 'cucumber' and blurted out, "Oh, I know THAT one!"

Yuuri learned the sounds of some of Victor's regular names, even if he didn't know their meaning, and the context Victor often used them in. He didn't have much luck looking them up on his phone phonetically, damn the Cyrillic alphabet. He could have asked Yuri, but felt that wasn't a safe choice either. Over the course of months, it just became a thing Yuuri got used to.

Until Yuuri moved to St. Petersburg. Yuuri's pick-up language skills were definitely sharper than Victor, who had spent half a year in Hasetsu and only learned to gossip with his mother, which meant that gradually Victor's pet names started to reveal themselves.

"Gingerbread?" Yuuri asked at the bakery. Victor grinned at that one. "You use that one all the time. Why?"

"Mm, it's like calling you sugar but a bit…" Victor pinched off a piece of Yuuri's gingerbread scone and popped it in his mouth, thinking. He winked. "A bit more spicy. Sass."

"Ugh, you're a gingerbread," Yuuri grumbled, cheeks going pink, which only made Victor laugh in delight.

My light, my heart, my sunbeam, and even the ridiculous my little fish were all sort of all right, Yuri felt. He wished he wouldn't overhear Victor using them to the other rinkmates when talking about Yuuri instead of to him, but eh, you couldn't have it all.

It took maybe a month for Yuuri's ear to improve enough to pick out words from conversations not directed to him, to start distinguishing words instead of a blur of sounds, and for his rinkmates to forget more often to switch to English for him and just carry on as normal. Victor and Yuri were arguing over the barrier, Yuuri sitting nearby to lace up his skates, when his ear caught one of Victor's endearments, and his head popped up suddenly. Yuri said it again, and Yuuri squinted in concentration, eavesdropping shamelessly.

He could probably figure it out. They were definitely talking about warmups, and Yuuri knew the word for ice and figures and laces and blade and…

"Ice skate?" Yuuri demanded, forgetting he was eavesdropping.

"Hah?" Yuri demanded leaning around Victor. Victor tilted his head, but Yuri caught on quicker than him, switching to English. "Have you seriously been here a month and not learned the word for skates yet? Shit, you two are a pair of something all right."

Yuuri pointed accusingly at Victor. "You've been calling me your little ice skate! Victor!"

"What? It's cute!" Victor protested. Yuuri did not agree, and Yuri's grab for his phone to no doubt text this crap right to Otabek said he didn't either.

"You might as well call me your cute little kneepads!" Yuuri snapped.

"I mean, I could, but that seems a bit like kiss and tell…" Victor cut off at another wail of his name.

It took about ten seconds for everybody else at the rink to gleefully start calling Yuuri their little ice skate as well, and Yuuri's narrowed eyes promised Victor he was going to paying for this later. Definitely _without_ kneepads.


End file.
